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Skating, Hating, Masturbating

Ice Cream talks to us about memes, their upcoming album, and “Dairy Rock,” the genre they invented

By Madison Killian

Hailing from San Francisco, the band Ice Cream is not your average group of dudes. Before our interview, I read up on them and was drawn in immediately: they were working on a debut album with the legendary Bruce Botnick (famously worked with The Doors, and The Beach Boys) and was soon scouring their Facebook page… and stumbled upon the “Band Interests” section. It read: skating, hating, masturbating.

Oh no.

The genre-bending garage punk band consists of Lou Rappoport, Kevin Fielding, Joseph Sample, and Bryce Fernandez. When the band reached out to me, we decided to move forward with an interview via Skype… but it turns out that the extremely cheap and garbage wifi in my apartment wasn’t strong enough; And instead of seeing the faces of the dashing members of Ice Cream, it looked like I had paused a action-packed scene from the movie The Ring. After much giggling between us, and me trying out holding my laptop in awkward positions in an attempt to get a better connection, we decided to just talk on the phone. But, as disastrous as our introductions happened to be- the rest of the interview was great. Fun, even. All’s well that ends well.

Sucker: How long have you guys been a band?

Ice Cream: 2 years I think. Maybe 18 years.

Sucker: Do you guys have hobbies other than music?

Ice Cream: Hockey, surfing! Video games for sure.

Sucker: Are you guys signed to a label?

Ice Cream: We put out our cassette on the Burger Records imprint label, Weiner. We’re talking about doing our full length with them.

Sucker: Do you have an album title yet?

Ice Cream: We’re currently taking title suggestions. So, if you think of anything good. Let us know…

Sucker: What bands would you say influence you most?

Ice Cream: I’m gonna go ahead and say not really bands right now. It could be like.. A bus driving by.. And I’d be really interested in the bus noise. Just like… sounds in general right now.

Sucker: Ok…

Ice Cream: It could change tomorrow, but today I heard one of those electric busses, and they got good feedback. You can hear the voltage. *makes extremely cool and definitely not lame revving engine noises*

Sucker: You guys should just call your next album Bus Noise.

Ice Cream: Bus Noise!

Sucker: I kind of hate bus noises because they all drive right by my apartment…I can’t relate.

Ice Cream: But maybe it could be soothing?

Sucker: Totally! Except when it’s not.

Ice Cream: *laughs*

Sucker: Are there any misconceptions about your band?

Ice Cream: Yeah, we get a lot of people thinking that we’re adult contemporary, or we’re a latino boy band- because of our name. There’s another band with our name, so when you type in Ice Cream on Spotify it takes you there… So like when we play live, it’s a lot of explaining that we aren’t them.

It’s hard explaining the genre. Especially to people who aren’t super familiar. I wanna say garage-rock, but when you say garage-rock, people think of like, heavy nonsense. And then I wanna say something with a sweet melody, so like, garage-pop. But then people are like, “What the hell is garage-pop?”

I started telling my co-workers that it’s punk-rock-jazz. Somewhere in that realm I feel.

I just feel like garage rock, surf rock, pop rock… uhhh… just a mixture of those.

And then you call that dairy-rock.

Sucker: Dairy rock.

Ice Cream: Yeah. Dairy Rock.

Sucker: Perfect.

Ice Cream: Mind bending.

Sucker: Drink of choice?

Ice Cream: Moscow mule- I never order them though because they’re usually quite expensive. *laughs* If I have an all encompassing drink ticket from a venue- that’s what I’m getting.

Other than that I just drink cheap beer. I like some IPA’s. Yeah. Heineken.

Sucker: So lots of beer. Are you guys big into partying?

Ice Cream: We pick and choose our battles, you know? In this day and age you gotta pick and choose.

Sucker: What are your favorite memes? Or do you hate memes.

Ice Cream: Oh.. you mean may-mays? *laugh* Oh man- I could go on for DAYS with memes. Right now what’s popping into my head- that sad Michael Jordan face one is pretty funny. Like, usually if somebody fucks up they put a sad Michael Jordan face on their body. I’m just trying to get through this life without having a sad Michael Jordan face photoshopped onto me.

I saw this one that was like “9 out of 10 white girls Can’t Even.”

My girlfriend and all her friends keep saying “I can’t. I literally can’t.” like…. What the fuck. They all sound the same.

Sell out immediately and then never make another album. We did it boys.

Sucker: Everyone’s gonna go solo.

Ice Cream: Yeah it’s gonna be like what Justin Timberlake did, but in the opposite direction. The album comes from every other N’Sync member besides him.

I wanna be Lance Bass. That’s all I’m saying.

Isn’t he an astronaut?

He’s definitely a gay astronaut.

Lance has a nice face.

Sucker: Do you guys follow pop-culture a lot?

Ice Cream: Anything that has to do with Rihanna. All hail queen Rih!

Sucker: I’m on that train for-sure.

Ice Cream: That’s what I’m talkin’ about GIRL!

Actually. We started a church, it’s called Ice Cream on Rihanna. Every member is actually just photoshopping melting ice cream scoops on Rihanna’s smokin’ hot body.

That could be a may may! That could be my new favorite meme.

Sucker: What’s next for you guys?

Ice Cream: We’re working with Bruce Botnick and kinda learning all these secrets about all these other people he’s worked with like Jim Morrison and Brian Wilson and shit. We’re pretty excited about it. We’re kinda just shopping for a label that’s gonna be able to put it out with some gusto, you know? We have a couple label offers but we’re trying to hold out on making a decision right now though. But yeah, Bruce is recording and mixing it. He’s got an ear for weird shit. So we kinda just record as much weird shit as possible and let him pick.

Sucker: Did you guys get to hear any cool stories from him?

Ice Cream: Yeah. Apparently Jim Morrison and him were at a hotel once and Jim threw a mattress out of the window, and then he jumped out of the window and onto the mattress. And he hit the mattress, but he knocked himself out on the mattress and they just left him there. *laughs*

Some of these songs we’ve had for awhile. Some of it is super new. There’s gonna be a lot of different stuff on there.

We’re trying to think of an album title that’s like Sum 41’s All Killer No Thriller, cuz’ that’s so sweet. We might call it All Thriller No Killer… or Even More Thriller…

Keep up with Ice Cream on their website and Facebook, and check out their video for “Wild” below.